"How long has it been since you had a new phone?This is a topic that has frequently aroused discussion among netizens in recent years. According to the data, the replacement cycle of Chinese consumers has been extended from 28 months to 43 months.
For consumers, in addition to the necessary need to replace their phones, technological innovation is the purchasing power of consumer electronics. But a reality in front of mobile phone manufacturers is that mobile phone technology is not less innovative, but the performance is too good and also leads to the extension of consumers' mobile phone replacement cycle.
If it is not innovative, it will be eliminated by the market, and if it is innovated, the consumer replacement cycle will be extended. Faced with this dilemma, the answer that domestic mobile phone manufacturers have come to is: continue to develop their own technology. This is not only the only way to enter the high-end, but also a matter of "life and death" of the enterprise.
In the last few months of 2023, domestic mobile phone manufacturers who continue to develop their own technology have finally seen hope for a recovery.
Large factories compete, rolling to self-developed technology
Economic ** once wrote: "High-end is the only way for mobile phone manufacturers, and it is also a 'battle of life and death'". Self-developed technology is the key for mobile phone manufacturers to break through Apple's "one dominant" pattern. In other words, the competition of mobile phone manufacturers in the future is the competition of self-developed technology.
Since 2021, major domestic mobile phone manufacturers have begun to enter the high-end market, increasing investment in self-developed technologies, such as self-developed chips, self-developed OS systems and other fields, and even large models that have exploded this year, promoting differentiated innovation and enhancing product competitiveness by jointly defining core components such as chips and screens with the industry.
Since the second half of 2023, domestic mobile phones have collectively scored large scores, frequently showing the latest achievements of self-developed technology. First of all, at the end of August, Huawei made a strong return with the Mate 60 series equipped with a fully self-developed Kirin chip, to the Xiaomi 14 series equipped with Xiaomi's surging OS system for the first time, and the vivo X100 equipped with a self-developed image chip for the first time.
In the context of relatively weak overall domestic consumption, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have successfully stimulated consumers' demand for replacement by relying on the innovation and breakthrough of self-developed technology.
According to the latest data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in September this year, the domestic market shipped 3,327 mobile phones70,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 590%；In October, mobile phone shipments in the domestic market were 291620,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 197%。According to a report by Counterpoint Research, domestic smartphone sales increased by 5% year-on-year during this year's Singles' Day.
The mobile phone industry, which has been in the cold winter for three consecutive years, finally sees the hope of recovery.
IDC even gave **, with the intensification of competition among domestic mobile phone brands, manufacturers are prompted to launch more and more competitive products to attract consumers to buy. In 2024, China's smartphone market shipments will reach 28.7 billion units, a year-on-year increase of 36%, shipments will remain stable in the next few years.
One of the reasons why IDC can make this is that it sees the trend of continuous strengthening of self-developed technology by domestic mobile phone manufacturers in 2024 and even in the next few years. IDC believes that with the continuous improvement of the technical capabilities of the domestic ** chain and the cost advantage it has always had, various brand manufacturers and the domestic ** chain have begun in-depth cooperation in the technology pre-research stage, sharing investment and risks, and creating more customized products. The proportion of self-developed technologies such as chips, screens, CMOS, storage, batteries, under-screen fingerprints, glass covers, and fuselage materials and the use of domestic ** chains is expected to continue to improve in an all-round way.
Counting the self-developed technologies of major mobile phone manufacturers, the core chip is undoubtedly a key point. However, for mobile phone manufacturers of digital consumer terminals, the R&D investment of chips is large and the cycle is long, which is not only difficult to reap results in the short term, but also brings certain pressure to mobile phone manufacturers. For example, in May this year, OPPO suddenly announced its decision to shut down its chip R&D team, Zheku, which had invested heavily in money, and terminated the chip self-development business. In August, Meizu also announced the termination of its chip research and development business.
You can't put all your eggs in one basket. Therefore, in addition to self-development, mobile phone manufacturers have also strengthened cooperation with the industrial chain by jointly defining and in-depth tuning core components with the first chain.
Taking vivo as an example, in recent years, in terms of technological innovation, vivo has established in-depth joint R&D relationships with industry chain partners such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Zeiss. Among them, the core SoC chip part, vivo has established a deep cooperative relationship with MediaTek since the Dimensity 9000 series. Years of cooperation have enabled vivo to accumulate a lot of experience in optimizing Dimensity SoC chips, and the Dimensity 9300, which is jointly defined by the two parties, adopts a unique all-large core architecture under the joint exploration of both parties.
Technology goes up, the threshold goes down
In this year's wave of "self-developed technology" of domestic mobile phone manufacturers, there is also an obvious trend: flagship technology decentralization and enhancement.
Nowadays, domestic mobile phones usually have their own sub-brands, aiming at the low-end market, through the establishment of the main brand and sub-brand matrix, further improve the product line layout, strengthen the market share of high-end products and the competition for market segments.
Technology decentralization is already a common phenomenon in the mid-market of the industry. In the first half of this year, Huawei nova 11 series, for the first time, Kunlun glass, two-way Beidou satellite messaging, etc., which are only available in the Mate series and P series, and Xiaomi's image brain was also used in the Redmi K60 series. In the second half of the year, the trend of technology decentralization has even further involved the chips of the latest core of smartphones. For example, the Huawei nova 12 Pro and Ultra will be equipped with Kirin chips, which were originally exclusive to Huawei's high-end and flagship, although it is not the same Kirin 9000s chip as the Mate 60 series, but this is the first time that Kirin chips have been used on mid-range brands. What's more important is the iQOO Neo9 Pro, which not only uses the main camera of the same main brand vivo X100 image flagship, but also uses the same Dimensity 9300 chip, which directly refreshes the flagship standard of the mid-range mobile phone market.
On the one hand, this shows that the gradual maturity of various technologies, the acceleration of production and shipment, and the overall cost reduction, so that the cost of the whole machine has been reduced and "popularized".But on the other hand, it also means that domestic mobile phone brands are still accelerating their involution in the mid-end market.
According to the latest data from BCI, the market share gap between the top 5 brands in China's mobile phone market in 2023 will remain within 1%, which shows the fierce and stalemate in the market competition.
However, due to the loose distribution of the high-end market, the most fierce competition in each segment is the mid-end market of about 3,000 yuan. According to the latest data released by GFK, the average sales price of China's mobile phone market in 2023 has reached 3,480 yuan, of which the sales share of mobile phones in the ** segment of 2,000-3,500 yuan accounts for more than 25%, that is, the market size of more than 1 4.
This also means that accelerating the popularization of more flagship technologies to sub-brands has become the key to competition in the mid-to-high-end market. It's easy to say, but it's not that easy to actually do. In addition to the cost factor, there is also the consideration of whether it will impact the sales of flagship phones of the main brand. This is the ultimate problem that plagues almost all top mobile phone companies, but now, someone has done it.
iQOO, this time with the strong support of "pro-dad", showed a "big killer move" to seize the mid-range market - iQOO Neo9 Pro. Judging from the official product information, iQOO Neo9 Pro not only has a series of "first" and "exclusive" upgrades, but also brings together many "blue technologies" just released by vivo, and it is also the fastest product in the industry to decentralize a number of important flagship functions and technologies.
On the core chip, Neo9 Pro uses two of the strongest chips of the same level and generation for the first time: one is iQOO's self-developed e-sports chip Q1, which is also the "strongest self-developed game core" in the industry;The other is the same chip that vivo just released a month ago, the image flagship X100 was first equipped with the Dimensity 9300, which is the only "4+4" all-large core architecture in the same file.
The strongest dual-core brings the strongest performance to the iQOO NE9 series, which can be called "the strongest NEO in history".
In addition to the chip, the image strength of the blue factory flagship has also been delegated to the iQOO Neo 9RO, which not only adopts the same main camera and ultra-wide angle of the image flagship vivo X100, but also carries the image algorithm of the blue factory flagship;In terms of intelligence, the blue factory has also delegated the latest AI model "70 billion blue heart model" to the iQOO Neo 9ro.
Technology goes up, the threshold goes downAllowing more consumers to enjoy scientific and technological progress is the greatest significance of technological innovation. And "technology dimensionality reduction, product dimensionality upgrading" itself is the "product background" of the iQOO neo series all along. In addition, accelerating the decentralization of flagship technologies can further enhance the stickiness of core users, while also stabilizing the "basic disk" and increasing iQOO to seize the mid-range market and e-sports segments.
According to the data released by iQOO, the pre-sale sales of the latest iQOO Neo9 series released on December 27 on the first day of pre-sale were twice that of the previous generation Neo8 series in the same period.
This is also completely expected. iQOO Neo9 Pro integrates a number of the latest self-developed and joint R&D technologies of the blue factory, but it is only between 2999 3999 yuan, which can be called the performance ceiling in the mid-to-high-end market, which not only refreshes the new standard of sub-flagship mobile phones, but also hands over a perfect answer sheet for science and technology to benefit the people.